Thursday, November 03, 2011

For All the Saints, For All the Moms

In a month that begins with the celebration of All Saints, what better time to begin learning about the Saints of our Church?  And what better place to start than A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms by Lisa Hendey?

Subtitled "52 Companions for Your Heart, Mind, Body and Soul," this book is packed full of encouragement, challenges, and reflections about saints who can be especially inspiring to moms.

As soon as I received this book, I immediately opened it to the table of contents to see who's in there!  I had to check for my favorites, of course, and they were there in abundance:  Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, Saint Martha of Bethany, Saint Anthony of Padua, and more.  But there were plenty of other saints with whom I'm much less familiar, such as Saint Sebastian, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, and Saint Josephine Bakhita.

This book is bigger than I expected, with each chapter composed of a short biography of the saint, lessons from the saint's life and/or writings, traditions of the saint's feast day celebration, a quote from the saint, Scripture passages and reflections--one for each day for a week, activities for moms to complete on their own and with their children, a family prayer and thoughts to ponder.  That's a lot of inspiration packed into just over 300 pages!

This is not a book that you have to begin at chapter 1 and work your way through.  You can choose to read and reflect on the life of a saint that relates to a particular challenge you're having at the time.  That's easy to do, because the table of contents shows not only the saint's name, but a virtue for which the saint is well-known.

A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms isn't going to lose its place on my bedside table anytime soon; it's a devotional that will serve as inspiration for a long time to come.

I wrote this review of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

A review copy of the book was provided to me. I did not receive other compensation for this review.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Barb, thank you so much for your very kind words about and support of my new book! I hope you continue to enjoy it and greatly appreciate your helping us to spread the word!